Research On Religion » Religious Right

Robert D. Rubin on Judicial Review & the Religious Right

tonygill — Sun, 28 May 2017 08:00:08 +0000

Prior to the 1980s, conservative evangelical Christians were skeptical of the US federal court system, having suffered a number of setbacks within the Supreme Court involving issues such as education and abortion. This begins to change in the 1980s as the now organizationally-consolidated Religious Right began a new legal strategy of embracing judicial review and positioning themselves as an aggrieved minority. Dr. Robert D. Rubin, an independent scholar who earned his Ph.D. at Indiana University, discusses how this change occurred in the legal and social crucible of Mobile, Alabama in the 1980s. After a bit of background on how Dr. Rubin discovered this topic, we review the religious and political landscape of both the United States, writ large, and the US South, in particular noting important changes such as the Civil Rights Movement and various Supreme Court Decisions (e.g., Epperson v Arkansas) that gave rise to the Religious Right movement. We then examine two very specific cases that passed through the chambers of Judge Brevard Hand — Jaffree v Board of School Commissioners and Smith v Board of School Commissioners. The Jaffree case involved an atheist parent who had a problem with a school prayer that his child was being forced to recite in a public school. The second case involving Douglas Smith took up the issue whether the public school curriculum in Mobile County was advancing the religion of “secular humanism.” Robert details the dimensions of these cases and notes how Smith v Board saw religious conservatives going on the offensive and employing some of the arguments used to remove prayer from the school to place religion on an even playing field. Tony then questions Dr. Rubin about the character and judicial philosophy of Brevard Hand. The conversation includes reflections upon Robert’s various meetings and interviews with Judge Hand, a man who challenges the stereotypes of the “rotund and suspender-wearing judges” often depicted on television. We also review the justice’s legal philosophy, which emphasized the principles of republican majoritarianism, federalism, and self-reliance. Tony picks up a whiff of Alexis de Tocqueville in this discussion and asks Robert if he noticed any particular books in Judge Hand’s personal library, to which he gives an interesting and revealing answer that provides insight into the mind of southerners. (To find out what book it was, you will have to listen to the podcast… or read the links below.) We close our podcast with Robert’s reflections about what he learned throughout the research process, wherein he learned to see the importance of viewing the world through the eyes of others, and a bit of discussion about his next project that examines the importance of prayer in enhancing civil discourse. Recorded: May 10, 2017.

RELATED LINKS

Robert D. Rubin’s LinkedIn page.

Judicial Review and American Conservatism: Christianity, Public Education, and the Federal Courts in the Reagan Era, by Robert Daniel Rubin.

Jaffree v Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County

Smith v Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County

The Mind of the South, by W.J. Cash (mentioned in podcast).

RELATED PODCASTS

Paul Harvey on Religion in the American South.

Nathanael Snow on the Evangelical Coalition and Public Choice.

James Patterson on MLK, Fulton Sheen, and Jerry Falwell.

Hunter Baker on the Past & Future of the Religious Right.

Jon Shields on Democratic Values and the Christian Right.

David Dixon on Religious Rhetoric and the Civil Rights Movement.

Matthew Franck on Hobby Lobby and Religious Freedom Jurisprudence.

Matthew Franck on Hosana-Tabor and Ministerial Exemptions.

Mark David Hall on Religious Accommodations and the Common Good.

David Cortman on Religious Liberty Updates.

David Buckley on the Demand for Clergy in Politics

tonygill — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 08:00:32 +0000

Do religious individuals prefer to have their spiritual leaders directly involved in politics? Whereas the common assumption might be that religious adherents would like to see clergy directly involved in public policy decision-making, Prof. David Buckley (University of Louisville, political science) shows that the opposite is true. Using data from the World Values Survey, he noted an interesting pattern wherein the more spiritually-engaged a population was, the less likely those individuals were to support an active role for priests, pastors, and rabbis in the government. Prof. Buckley then explains this phenomenon can be explained by two causal mechanisms. First, in highly religious societies, there are many informal “back channels” wherein clergy already have influence over policy, thus necessitating less direct and formal roles. Second, direct and visible involvement in politics raises a set of risks for confessional leaders including political backlash for supporting losing politicians, deterioration of moral authority when clerics support unpopular (or unsuccessful) policies/politicians, and the chance that taking a political stand would divide their parishioners making them less likely to remain engaged with the religious institution. David illustrates these causal mechanisms using the debate over a reproductive health bill in the Philippines in the past decade. Recorded: April 8, 2016.

David Buckley on Academia.edu (access site for several papers).

Cosmos Club Foundation.

World Values Survey (main website).

Philippines’ Reproductive Health Act of 2012 (mentioned in podcast).

RELATED PODCASTS

Nathanael Snow on the Evangelical Coalition and Public Choice.

Michael Cromartie on Religion, the Media, and Think Tanks.

Ann Wainscott on Morocco’s Religious Foreign Policy.

Owen Strachan on Chuck Colson.

James Patterson on MLK, Fulton Sheen, and Jerry Falwell.

Hunter Baker on the Past and Future of the Christian Right.

Ani Sarkissian on Politics and Religious Civil Society in Turkey.

Kevan Harris on Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the Green Movement.

David Dixon on Religious Rhetoric and the Civil Rights Movement.

Bradley Murg on Russian Orthodoxy after the Soviet Union.

Barry Hankins on Jesus, Gin, and the Culture Wars.

Jon Shields on Democratic Virtues and the Christian Right.

Hunter Baker on the Past and Future of the Religious Right

tonygill — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 08:00:01 +0000

The Religious Right has been a force to be reckoned with in American politics over the past four decades, but is its influence on the wane as many of its initial leaders and intellectuals pass from the scene? Prof. Hunter Baker, associate professor of political science and Dean of Instruction at Union University, talks about the past, present, and future of this movement based upon his most recent book The System Has a Soul.

Following some light banter about puppies, Prof. Baker provides us with a definition of what the Religious Right is, noting that it has been a term that has been ill-defined and often used to refer to poor and uneducated religious voters. Hunter points out that this movement has some deep and surprising intellectual roots. While religious involvement in American politics has a long history, he dates the current movement back to William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes Monkey Trial and then picks up the story in the mid-20th century with the emergence of a number of “neo-evangelical” thinkers such as Carl F.H. Henry and Frances Schaeffer. We review the interesting influence these thinkers had and note the surprising activist background of these individuals, including Schaeffer’s willingness to “listen to hippies” and pro-labor attitudes (things that are not normally associated with the media caricature of the Religious Right).

We then talk about the emergence of the movement in the 1970s with individuals such as Chuck Colson arguing for religion to take on a more public profile and events such as the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision playing an important mobilizing effect. This is where Hunter explains how Christians began to reject “functional differentiation” and helps Tony understand what that social scientific-sounding terms means. While many neo-evangelicals supported Jimmy Carter’s bid for the presidency in 1976 and that many Democrats were supporters of the pro-life movement that was gaining ground, Hunter points out the shift that occurs to the Republican Party in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan’s embrace of these individuals with his famous quote, “I know you can’t endorse me, but I endorse you.” Our conversation also covers the extent to which this movement was merely an evangelical Christian movement or whether it entailed non-Protestant thinkers such as Richard John Neuhaus.

We review the public rise of the Religious Right in the 1980s with reference to Falwell’s Moral Majority and Robertson’s Christian Coalition, but Hunter points out that it was James Dobson’s Focus on the Family that probably had the bigger and more lasting impact on the movement. Again he points out that Dobson, who has a Ph.D., is indicative of the scholarly grounding of the movement contrary to a media opinion that paints the movement as anti-intellectual. Although the demise of the Moral Majority and the election of Bill Clinton as president are often seen as indications of the waning of the Religious Right in the 1990s, Hunter asserts that the movement took on a more grassroots approach and was able to develop a “deeper bench” by electing adherents to office and placing them in the Academy. He makes the claim that the real peak of the Religious Right movement was around 2005. Disillusionment with the presidency of George W. Bush and the apparent failings of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aided in eroding the influence of Christian conservatives during this time. We also discuss the politics surrounding same-sex marriage and how losses in the battle to ban gay marriage have also chipped away at the movement’s strength.

We finally turn our attention to the future of the Religious Right. Tony asks to what extent the Tea Party represents a revitalization of the Christian conservatives, but Prof. Baker notes that the Tea Party represents a distinct social movement. Nonetheless, he raises the issue of religious liberty and how Christians are now seeing this as a major issue that may allow them to align with the more libertarian leanings of the Tea Party. We also chat about the recent writings of Jonathan Malesic and James Davison Hunter who argue that it may be a time for Christians to embrace secularism and perhaps take a “season of silence.” Hunter provides his thoughts on this topic and we ruminate about the future of Christian political activism in the United States noting that there have been periods of waxing and waning throughout the long course of history and we may be witnessing one of those waning moments. Recorded: July 23, 2014.

RELATED LINKS

Hunter Baker’s bio at his personal blog.

The System Has a Soul: Essays on Christianity, Liberty, and Political Life, by Hunter Baker.

The End of Secularism, by Hunter Baker.

Political Thought: A Student’s Guide, by Hunter Baker.

How Should We Then Live?, by Frances Schaeffer (mentioned in podcast).

RELATED PODCASTS

Hunter Baker on Secularism.

Hunter Baker on the Future of Higher Education.

Jon Shields on Democratic Virtues and the Religious Right.

Gerald de Maio on the Electoral Religion Gap.

Kevin den Dulk on Religion, Education, and Civic Engagement.

Luis Bolce on the Media and Anti-Fundamentalism.

William Donohue on Secular Sabotage.

Richard Flory on Why We Go to Church (and other stuff)

tonygill — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 09:00:36 +0000

A recent Barna Group survey found that roughly 60% of regular churchgoers could not remember any new religious insight from the last time they attended churc, and 50% could not remember any insight from the previous week’s service. So why bother gettin’ out of bed, gettin’ on your Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and trudging down to the local congregation? We take up this issue with Dr. Richard Flory, associate research professor of sociology at the University of Southern California and director of research at the USC Center for Religion & Civic Culture. Based upon a blog post he wrote on this topic, Richard speculates that it might not be the spiritual message that lures us to church service, but rather the communal aspect of worshiping together that draws us together every Sunday. We discuss some of the demographic possibilities for these research findings as well, contemplating whether age, gender or the clergy’s lack of dynamism may have something to do with why people report tuning out during the sermon. The second half of our discussion then looks at the role that churches play in the community and we talk about Richard’s research on church activism in Los Angeles following the 1992 riots, a topic near to the heart of your host since he was living in L.A. at the time. Prof. Flory details the various means that churches have tried to heal the city vis-a-vis charity, advocacy for social justice, community development, and interfaith dialogue. He provides several examples including work done by Rev. Mark Whitlock, Cecil Murray of the First AME, La Voice PICO, and other groups. He concludes by noting how churches must first be interested in developing the spiritual life of its congregants but then develop those interests in such a way that they entail community outreach. Recorded: February 17, 2012.

“Why Even Go to Church?” Richard Flory’s blog post on the Barna Group survey.

“Prof. Flory Goes to Chapel,” his follow up blog posting to the piece mentioned above.

Growing up in America: The Power of Race in the Life of Teens, by Richard Flory, Korie Edwards, and Brad Christerson.

Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation, by Richard Flory and Donald Miller.

GenX Religion, edited by Richard Flory and Donald Miller.

Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement, mentioned in the podcast.

LA Voice PICO, a religiously-based community organization mentioned in the interview.

RELATED PODCASTS

Jay Hein on the Faith-Based Iniative.

Margarita Mooney on Religion & Haitian Immigrants.

Byron Johnson on Religion & Delinquency.

Byron Johnson on More God, Less Crime.

Scott Thompson on Youth Ministry.

Jon Shields on Democratic Virtues & the Christian Right

tonygill — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 09:00:15 +0000

Prof. Jonathan A. Shields (assistant professor of government, Claremont McKenna College) talks about about his latest book, The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right, with Tony. Whereas popular media accounts of the Christian Right during the 1980s portrayed this loosely knit movement as belligerent, Prof. Shields finds that Christian activists are often trained to press their issues in the public arena in ways that facilitate deliberative democracy. Taking the pro-life movement as his primary test case, he examines how this movement has evolved over the past four decades. Jon interestingly notes that the anti-abortion movement had its roots in Catholic progressivism and the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s. During the 1970s, evangelical Protestant Christians became increasingly involved in promoting a pro-life agenda. We examine Operation Rescue, one of the more confrontational groups within this movement and explore why it eventually fizzled out as a major organization, and what strategies and organizations played a more prominent (albeit quieter) role, including the National Right to Life Committee. Jon covers some of the strategies and training methods activists use that promote democratic norms and enhance issue deliberation. We broaden our discussion to examine the rise and decline of the Moral Majority and what groups such as the Christian Coalition have done in its place. Contrary to what one might glean from media reports over the past several decades, evangelical Christians have become more politically active in the 1990s and continue to be in the first decade of the 21st century. We finish off with some thoughts about the future of the Christian Right and the role it may be playing in the Tea Party movement. Recorded: November 2, 2010.

RELATED LINKS

The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right by Jonathan A. Shields.

RELATED PODCASTS

David Brody on the 2010 Midterm Elections and Religious Journalism.

Corwin Smidt on Religion, Elections, and the God Gap.

David Brody on the 2010 Midterm Elections and Religious Journalism

tonygill — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:00:42 +0000

What role did religion play in the 2010 midterm US elections? While scholarly assessments of this question may take awhile to be published, we turn to David Brody, chief political correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), to get his perspective from inside the beltway. Mr. Brody — an Emmy Award-winning journalist and frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News — has interviewed a number of prominent politicians who played a role in the recent elections, including Barack Obama, John McCain, Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle. He shares his unique perspective on being a journalist for a religiously-affiliated news outlet regarding how the the 2008 and 2010 elections played out and what changes occured in the religious and political landscape over the past two years. We talk about the role that evangelicals played in the Tea Party movement, a story that Mr. Brody considers to be one of the most under-reported stories of the election. Our discussion also covers what happened to pro-life Democrats following their vote for major changes in health care insurance, the consequence for three Iowa judges following their decision to overturn a voter iniative on gay marriage, and what role religion played in the candidacies of Christine O’Donnell (Delaware) and Sharron Angle (Nevada). We explore the various tensions between evangelical Christians, secular libertarians and Mormons within the Tea Party phenomenon and David tells us about where “teavangelicals” came from. David also offers up some thoughts on the upcoming 2012 presidential election. We finish with an interesting discussion on what life is like for a Christian journalist in Washington, DC and a secular media world. Recorded: November 9, 2010.

NOTE: Shortly after posting this podcast, David Brody was promoted from wnior White House correspondent to chief political correspondent at CBN. Us folks at Research on Religion can only assume that we played a vital role in this promotion. After all, once you are on RoR, you’ve reached the pinnacle of your profession.

The Brody File blog on CBN.

RELATED LINKS

Corwin Smidt on Religion, Elecctions and the God Gap.